Monthly Archives: October 2009

Hillary Clinton continued her farcical visit to Pakistan today by blaming Obama’s failure to make any progress with respect to Israeli-Palestinian relations on George W. Bush. Clinton told a group of Pakistani journalists I think that, look, we all know that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is one that is a very serious and difficult problem that we are working hard also to try to resolve. We inherited a lot of problems. »

Republican-endorsed Dierdre Scozzafava has suspended her campaign for New York’s 23rd district Congressional seat, “releas[ing] those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit.” She evidently has not endorsed Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. Recent polling has shown Scozzafava’s support collapsing, while the race between Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens is too close to call. It is not clear that that Scozzafava’s »

Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday invoked the state secrets privilege in connection with a case titled Shubert, et al. v. Barack Obama, et al.. The Shubert case is pending in federal district court in San Francisco. Assuming the court agrees with the Obama administration’s position, the case will be dismissed on the ground that it cannot proceed without a danger that vitally important national security secrets will be revealed. Many »

I wrote about the tribute paid by National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman to President Obama in “Rocco’s Modern Life.” Landesman hailed Obama as “the first president that [Ed.: ouch!] actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln[.]” Seeking to move Obama to an even more world-historic plane, Landesman also saluted Obama as “the most powerful writer »

The new issue of the Weekly Standard carries my article “The flying imams win.” In the article I take a brief look back at Judge Montgomery’s July decision denying official immunity to the law enforcement officers who detained and questioned the flying imams at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. In her decision Judge Montgomery held that no competent law enforcement officer could reasonably have thought his behavior was legal. Judge »

Trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers two games to one, Chicago White Sox manager Al Lopez called upon his Game One starter, Early Wynn, for Game Four. He thus again bypassed his long-time ace Billy Pierce to bring Wynn back on three days rest. Pitching on three days rest was no big deal in those days, though, and Lopez had limited Wynn to seven (shutout) innings in the Game One rout »

In the United Kingdom, Parliament will take up a proposal to give National Health Service patients the right to seek private health care if they have been kept waiting for an appointment with a specialist for more than four months. Cancer patients, in particular, have evidently been removing themselves from the queue the hard way. But the problem isn’t only with specialized forms of treatment. The London Times quotes Jennifer »

If ever a cliche needed to be retired, it’s the one about “speaking truth to power.” And if the recent use of this self-congratulatory phase, by top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, doesn’t put us out of its misery, nothing will. Jarrett was being interviewed by CNN’s Campbell Brown about the White House’s criticism of Fox News. Brown, bless her, was asking tough questions that placed Jarrett on the defensive. »

Much discussion of the House Democrats’ health care bill has focused on its inclusion of the “public option,” which most observers see as a Trojan Horse intended to serve, ultimately, as the vehicle for socialized medicine as private insurers are driven from the market–a process that President Obama has said may take ten to twenty years. What strikes me as I read the House bill, however, is how closely it »

Hugo Chavez says that President Obama should try to earn the Nobel Peace Prize that he was prematurely awarded. That’s a sentiment that has been voiced by many, and that Obama seems to share. Perhaps it lies behind the administration’s unhelpful diplomacy in Honduras which Scott noted earlier this morning. More troubling, perhaps, is that Obama’s perceived need to burnish his “peacemaker” credentials may be causing him to compromise America’s »

Today’s news brings word that Manuel Zelaya will return as the president of Honduras thanks to American diplomatic pressure. It is perfectly fitting that the signal diplomatic triumph of President Obama’s first year in office is the restoration to power of the lawfully deposed Honduran thug and friend of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Hugh Chavez. It is inimical to the national interest of the United States. It is a »

The full title of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. If memory serves, Dr. Strangelove’s scheme to repopulate the United States after nuclear Armageddon had something to do with learning to love the bomb. “I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines,” Dr. Strangelove explains, “the women will »

President Obama has asked senior advisers for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to help him determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which need increased foreign troop support. Obama reportedly will base his decisions about adding U.S. troops at least in part on this analysis. On its face, this sounds admirable. It seems that Obama is finally delivering on his promise to be a post-partisan president »

I fly into Minneapolis on the average once a week, so I take local aviation stories pretty personally. The saga of two Delta (formerly Northwest) pilots who lost track of the time because they were absorbed with their laptops, reportedly analyzing how their schedules would be affected by Delta’s acquisition of Northwest, struck close to home. Actually, I’ve been on many flights that have overshot the MSP airport. If you »

Isn’t a diplomat supposed to be–you know–diplomatic? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to think so. On her current visit to Pakistan, she managed to insult both her own government and Pakistan’s in the space of a few minutes. The Associated Press has reported on interviews and a Q and A session that Clinton gave in Islamabad. I came across it via The Corner, where John Hannah was appalled »

I learned from reading Stuart Rothenberg’s take on the the outlook for the 2009 elections that Jon Lerner was responsible for the Club For Growth poll showing conservative candidate Doug Hoffman taking a small lead in New York’s 23rd Congressional District special election. Having managed Rudy Boschwtiz’s unsuccessful 1996 Senate campaign against Paul Wellstone in which I served as Rudy’s treasurer, Jon is an old friend of mine. Jon is »